And yet, and yet…

I like to read about trends and world events, but in my studies I’ve found a thing that irks me: our obsession with data.

You might read that and think I’m anti-science. That’s definitely not true. I think science and faith live and thrive together. Where I actually grow intensely irritable is actually when Christians and churches become overly obsessed with data. We’ve all heard the stats at some time or another: percentages of unreached people groups, percentages of communities that are churched, birthrates, poverty rates, what religion different voters follow, and on and on. My personal feeling is that sociologists and pollsters wake up in the morning laughing, because no matter what work they do in getting the stats, there will always be different data tomorrow. It’s great job security.

But here’s the catch: who really cares? When we talk data across broad spectrums of countries or voting blocs, there are assumptions inherent that the testing group is actually representative and that the research wasn’t biased. And it also assumes that people aren’t lying about their intentions (or at least are expressing aspiration more than action). You can read the stats, feel bad for a minute, give money to a cause, and then never think about it again.

What the greater world culture and big tech want is for people to see themselves as bytes. They encourage everyone to be absolutely unique, while still continuing to categorizing them in stereotypical chunks. To the greater statistic world you are not [insert name here]. You are a mail merge. You are a conglomeration of observed stereotypes that can be manipulated to get money or a vote.

You are your race, your voting preference, your religion, your socioeconomic status, your trauma, your people group, your social justice cause, your illness, your disability, your fears, your biases, your quality of mental health, your sexuality, your level of education. You aren’t really anything to them. You’re data.

You are not data.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You were woven in your mother’s womb by the Spirit of God, a gift of infinitely unique DNA that runs deeper than science has been able to peer. You preserve the information of the millenia, bearing the entire story of your family and writing chapters on blank pages. You make choices that determine the trajectory of your life and partnering with God, you utterly change the lives of those around you for him. You are created in the image of God, to rule and care for the earth, to be fruitful and multiply, to love God and man.

How do we know this? Christ didn’t die for data. But while we were still sinners, he died for you and for me. Christ didn’t take the cross for a 35% national survey.

Christ died for 100% of you.

You are not data.

You are a brilliant part of the patchwork of creation, designed to glorify Jesus Christ forever in relationship with him. You are designed to bind and loose on earth and bind and loose in heaven. You are designed to seek and to save the lost, to join Jesus in his mission leaving the 99 to pursue the 1. You will never be the sum of your parts, but you will be a unique part of the body of Christ, designed in Christ Jesus for good works that were determined beforehand. You are the poetry of God, expressing his beauty to the world.

You are not data.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:14